Blackening it allows it to absorb light throughout a broad spectrum, making it far more effective.

BBC: Copper wire

Scientists have found that blackening the element using lasers can transform the metal's properties.

BBC: Copper wire

There, the two find a human infant blackening over the fire on a spit.

ECONOMIST: New fiction

GIA, blackening the Islamists' image by helping it to carry out some of its more horrific deeds.

ECONOMIST: Algeria

Blackening copper allows it to absorb more light and heat, increasing the range of uses for the metal.

BBC: Copper wire

We can see oil discoloring the ocean, blackening coastlines and covering wildlife, but carbon dioxide is colorless and odorless.

CNN: What if carbon dioxide were as black as oil?

This included a blackout across significant portions of the Worldwide Web, with Wikipedia going dark and Google blackening its logo.

FORBES: Why The Demise Of SOPA Is Good For Brands

Despite occasional growls about unnamed enemies blackening the army's name, General Basbug seems quietly to be co-operating with the government in its investigation.

ECONOMIST: Turkey and its generals

Doorstep lending, or home credit as it is termed by the trade, is a counter-cyclical business: in a downturn, bad debts pile up, blackening credit histories.

ECONOMIST: New competition means doorstep lenders are in trouble

Not surprisingly, however, a Grenache vineyard that will produce dense, tongue-blackening wine when pruned back to yield 3 or 4 tons per acre makes pale, character-free, generic plonk at 10 or 12 tons per acre.

FORBES: International Wine of Mystery

These huge, sky-blackening dust storms sweep across Asia in March and April, bringing with them millions of tons of sand from inner Mongolia and depositing it in China and on across the Korean peninsula to Japan.

CNN: Desertification: How to stop the shifting sands